Television and Internet technologies are beginning to converge. With the increasing use of interactive television, viewers can now access Internet content via use of their television. Indeed, with the convergence of these two types of technologies, viewers with widely varied interests can now have access to the virtually limitless amount of information available on the Internet while they are watching television programs.
Many interactive television systems utilize a set top box to receive television signals from a Multiple System Operator (MSO) and to provide the television signals to a television. As its name implies, a set top box is typically placed in close proximity to a television, and provides the viewer with control over the selection of television programs to view. Set top boxes that are compatible with the particular interactive television system can also operate to allow the viewer to access the Internet via their television. Thus, when a television program is transmitted to the set top box along with an Internet uniform resource locator (URL) address (typically via use of triggers), the set top box can display some sort of visual indicator to the viewer to allow the viewer to navigate to that URL address, and then displays content available from that URL address.
There are some drawbacks, however, with use of a set top box in this manner to “surf” the Internet while viewing the television program. For instance, the Internet content retrieved from the URL address is rendered on the same television screen as the television program. This can be very distracting to the viewer, particularly if the television program is completely obscured by the Internet content rendered on the television screen. Even if the television has “picture-in-picture” capability that allows multiple images to be displayed, the overall image from the television screen can still be very distracting. Furthermore, text or graphics of the Internet content, especially if rendered in a picture-in-picture arrangement, may be difficult to read by the viewer if the viewer is sitting some distance away from the television screen.
As an alternative to displaying Internet content on the television screen, the viewer may choose to access the URL address via a remote personal computer (PC) or laptop. However, this can often be clumsy and inconvenient to the viewer. In a typical case, the viewer has to “watch for” a URL address once it is displayed by the television program to indicate the availability of Internet content or other supplementary information/content, and then quickly write down the URL address on a piece of paper before the URL address disappears from the television screen. Next, the viewer has to launch a web browser at the PC or laptop, and then manually key in the URL address from the piece of paper. By the time that the web browser renders the Internet content from the URL address, additional URL addresses may have been displayed by the television program or the original URL address may no longer be relevant or of interest.
There is a somewhat analogous problem if the viewer is “channel surfing” television channels (as opposed to “surfing the Internet” via television) or otherwise tuning from one television channel to another. As its name implies, “channel surfing” typically involves sequentially tuning through a television channel lineup, until a program of interest is found. In instances of channel surfing, the viewer may encounter URL addresses and supplemental content in a particular television channel, but then tunes to another television channel to continue surfing. In this scenario, the viewer risks losing important URL addresses as the viewer flips back and forth between television channels, especially if the viewer has to manually write down URL addresses on a piece of paper or manually enter URL addresses on a PC/laptop (or other remote device).
As a further illustration of this dilemma, assume that a URL address is being processed by the remote device while the viewer is watching a television program that provided that URL address. This process and/or the initial retrieval of the URL address can be disrupted when the viewer changes to a different television channel in order to watch a different television program. If the viewer wishes to re-access the previous URL address, the viewer would have to tune back to the original channel to obtain that URL address, if that URL address is even still available. In some instances, the URL address may no longer be available from the original television channel when the viewer tunes back to that channel, and thus the viewer would be in an unfortunate situation if the URL address was not previously saved on paper.
Another problem with channel surfing or other viewing of television programs is that the viewer is not made aware of non-programming-related content (such as weather alerts, stock indexes, scores of sport games, or other information that is not necessarily directly related to the particular program that is currently being viewed), until the viewer comes across a television channel that provides the non-programming-related content. In other instances, there may be programming-related or non-programming-related content in a particular channel that the viewer could miss, simply because the viewer is not watching that channel when the content is made available.
Therefore, improvements are needed in the providing of supplemental content for interactive television.